Six Steps Away
by feyfollower
Summary: Six steps away from him … that was all it took for her to realise that he would not stop her from walking away. But she hadn't stopped walking either because she was Katherine Pierce; immovable, invincible and heartless. She would always be running. - Oneshot. Based on the last scene between Katherine and Elijah in 4x18.


Six Steps Away

_AN at end as always._

She expected him to come after her. She didn't actually believe he would allow her to walk away, not after everything they had been through.

So as she walked away into the growing silence her heels felt tighter, her legs felt clumsy and unstable and her chest suddenly felt tighter than it had barely a minute ago.

But she didn't stop walking because Katherine Pierce, Katerina Petrova, whoever she was… she never stopped walking.

She never stopped moving or running, she was always in constant motion; always trying to escape someone or get something. There was no end to the havoc that she either caused or seemed to follow her. Even after all these years she still wasn't sure about the cause-and-effect relationship between trouble and her. There were times when she amicably courted the kinds of trouble that could potentially kill her and there were other times when she ran from it. Then there were the times when she couldn't make up her mind and she would find herself hanging around certain people or unfolding events that she would normally stay away from or meddle with, but she found herself unable or wiling to do neither. So she would act as a shadow, always watching, taking notes, seeing what pushed buttons and what affected certain people.

She had always counted on Elijah's morals. His word had always meant something.

And then…suddenly, just like that it didn't.

He had promised to act as the middleman in the negotiations between her and Klaus. She had counted on it. She had needed him.

But he had walked away from her.

He had walked away from her and his word and suddenly having the cure, having that leverage over just about anyone involved in little Elena Gilbert's life meant nothing.

In that short moment her heart had contracted as she realised that her lies and games and manipulation had caused a man who had always, always stayed true to his word for well over 500 years to betray his word. She had broken Elijah Mikaelson.

She could say it hadn't been hard. In saying that though she would have to disregard all those moments of their history and she would have to try and forget the look on his face as he had turned away from her; some sort of mixture of hurt, resignation and sorrow.

She would do it though. The past few weeks staying in the town with Elijah… those weeks hadn't been her life. It seemed that she would never be able to 'settle down' in any single town with anyone anymore.

Some part of her, a part that sounded irritatingly like Stefan, was telling her that the only home she had ever known had been with her family back in Bulgaria. Once that was gone, any sense of home was gone. The Stefan-voice in her head suggested that was because her parents and everyone she had ever cared about had died in her only home; no home would ever really feel safe again.

But the short weeks with Elijah had begun to feel almost alarmingly like home. She was on good terms with the humans and there was a thankful lack of vervain in the veins of the populace. She had found an empty house and had begun to form a basic plan in her head.

She had called Elijah to question him, to get as much information about Klaus and the cure and Silas and anything that could be useful. Their first meetings had been nothing but questions and debates. She had spent the first week focused solely on creating her plan and then…. Something had changed.

Suddenly the time she spent with Elijah was becoming less of a chore and she spent less and less of her days planning, instead spending time just living and experiencing the town.

It wouldn't last forever though and she never allowed herself to forget that.

Everyone's past always caught up to them and in her case it was a certainty that someone from her past would eventually find their way into her idyllic setting and set the blood to boiling point.

She didn't really quite understand why she had given Elijah the cure. She could list the reasons against giving him the cure and for giving him the cure. She could argue that in giving it to him she had nothing to do with it anymore and Damon, Stefan and little Elena Gilbert would leave her alone. She could say that she had given up possibly _the_ greatest bargaining chip in the world. She still, habitually it seemed, believed that he meant it when he had spoken of helping her and putting a stop to Klaus' manhunt.

There were all sorts of reasons that linked the cure to Elijah and yet somehow they didn't seem to matter. All that really mattered was that she had caused him to break his word and she had to set it right again. Somehow his word, flimsy and insignificant for anyone else, somehow it meant everything.

She couldn't explain it and even if she could she was certain that she would never say anything about it aloud.

So she had given him the cure, the current centre of the universe, for a single moment absolutely not expecting anything in return and then, against her logic, she actually expected Elijah to keep her standing there, to grab her arm and hold her there with him or even maybe kiss her. That was how she had managed to manipulate all the other men she had needed in her past.

But he didn't.

He didn't and she had walked away as Katherine Pierce must. Because she was immovable, invincible and heartless.

With each step that she had taken away from him her breathing became more laboured as she still expected him to call her name or catch hold of her. Six steps away from him … that was all it took for her to realise that he would not stop her from walking away.

No-one ever had, not without her compelling them.

Elijah would be no different. And yet in those six steps she wanted him to be different, she wanted him to stop her from walking and running away.

At the seventh step she had inhaled deeply, recollecting herself and reminding herself of who she was.

She was Katherine Pierce.

She was expected to stand alone and heartless.

She was good at it.

She would continue to be good at it.

And so she walked away.

_AN: So I saw TVD 4x18 and the Katherine/Elijah scenes just got to me. I'm still not sure I really ship them together but the way Katherine kept appealing to everyone about having changed and her scenes with Elijah – that last scene where she gave him the cure just killed me. I mean, honestly what reason did she have to give him the cure? _

_So this just kinda dig into it & in writing this I managed to end another distraction for me which means that I can get back to both 'The Princes' (if you read it know that I am still writing and I got this massive series of ideas that just popped into my head all at the same time and so I have to sort through them) and this other oneshot that I'm writing (I won't put details cause I may not put it up here depending). Anyway. Hope you enjoyed & thanks for reading!_


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